THE National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) for 2022 has now ended. Some 16,288 candidates were registered. This is the second time pupils wrote the NGSA examination successfully since the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. From all indications, the pupils are fairly well prepared with a high level of optimism regarding attainment outcomes.

The NGSA is an assessment examination used to determine child placement in secondary schools. The reality, however, is that only a limited number of students can be accommodated in every school despite the best efforts of students, teachers and parents to ensure that the best learning environment is in place for optimal student performance.

The Ministry of Education, for its part, has worked commendably to create equitable environments for learning in all of the schools regardless of the systems of ranking and priority which existed previously, all while battling the myriad of challenges to education brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Education Minister Priya Manickchand, the closure of schools, caused by the pandemic, effectively disturbed the delivery and quality of education and also heightened some of the inequalities faced by the nation’s children, especially in far-flung areas.

‘We prepared work sheets, we taught on television channel, we have a video prepared for every single topic. We have an entire website dedicated to quizzes that we prepared that are specific to these topics, so there is little else that could be done by the ministry to prepare these children,’ the Education Minister had said.

These are indeed commendable initiatives on the part of the Education Ministry which has impacted positively on learning outcomes especially at the primary level. These, along with several other initiatives by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration, such as cash grants to parents/guardians and the school-feeding programme, have resulted in a much higher level of learners’ attendance, particularly for hinterland areas.

The PPP/C administration must be given credit for making it possible for increasing the number of students admitted to discrete secondary schools through the implementation of the Secondary School Reform Programme (SSRP). This programme saw the conversion of several community high schools and primary tops to discrete secondary schools where students are now prepared to write the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CESC) examinations.

Prior to the implementation of the SSRP, the majority of pupils who wrote the then-named Common Entrance examination were sent to community high schools or the tops of primary schools which, for all practical purposes, was a period of marking time. These schools did not prepare students to sit the CSEC and only a handful of students managed to make it to tertiary-level institutions.

All of that has now changed thanks to the PPP/C administration. Not only are there more students writing the CSEC examinations but overall student performance has improved significantly as well. What the PPP/C administration has done, in effect, is to restructure the delivery of quality education both in terms of access and equity.

The education attainment gap between coastal and hinterland schools is now closing due to a number of policy interventions such as teacher education, greater supply of learning materials in the classroom, curricula development and reform, to name a few. Our learners are, today, the beneficiaries of the PPP/C’s visionary policies in terms of human resources development.

Education is, today, a top national priority and, as pointed out by President, Dr. Irfaan Ali, every Guyanese, irrespective of the region in which they live or their ethnic or religious background, would have an equal opportunity or stake in the development of Guyana and resultant prosperity. This, he said, will be done by rolling out universal access to world class education.